Twisting Perspectives
by Qwolfs
Summary: A more ruthless Harry deals with the aftermath of killing Voldemort and pays the price for escaping death. Harry/Harem Probably rather slow
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** **All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. All other concepts and ideas from other books or stories belong to their respective authors. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Day One

Battle of Hogwarts: 1998

As Harry lay at Hagrid's feet and looked out through slit eyes, to see Voldemort light the sorting hat afire, he had one of those moments of clarity that so many people spend lifetimes hoping and searching for. With the shattered Hogwarts as a backdrop, its defenders cowed though still defiant. Surrounded by the corpses of both sides, mighty giants lain low, piles of ash signifying the remnants of vampires, the results of a particularly zealous fire spell, Acromantula locked in the rictus of death, and the shattered, flayed, and torn apart remnants of wizards, witches and werewolves, Harry came to two distinct and illuminating conclusions.

The first and probably most important one being, that the practice of stunning people trying to kill you, if all that was needed to revive them was a third year spell, was one he would no longer partake in. Harry would later learn that this idiocy was the result of the now removed soul fragment utilizing his compassion which combined with the passive mentality the Dursleys had instilled in him limited his threat potential. As a consequence his " slytherin tendencies" rarely made themselves known, ambition being proactive.

The second conclusion: listening to his instincts when they told him to stun the ever living shit out of Remus and Tonks Lupin, and then portkeying them to shell cottage would be one of his proudest moments.

So when the moment ended and Neville proceeded to pull the sword of Gryffindor from the hat only to cut Nagini's head clean off, he did not wait around only to have some amazingly climactic final battle complete with witty one liner. No! He lifted his arm from where he lay, completely unobserved, and cast a silent reducto that proceeded to splatter what remained of the dark lord's head over the death eaters that stood nearest. And so when he sat up and the only sound to be heard was the thump of dead death eaters hitting the ground he did not relax his guard, no! He did his absolute best to embrace the most intelligent words any being had ever communicated to him " CONSTANT VIGILANCE". This led to one of those intuitive leaps Harry had become well known for. Instinctively understanding it was marked death eaters that had perished so conveniently and their marks all being connected to Lord Voldemort he instantly distrusted anything that seemed even remotely positive. Thus he summoned the Elder Wand away from where Voldemort's maybe-corpse? lay. Catching it and taking a step closer to the maybe corpse he got a perfect view of the head actively regrowing. Frantically searching his mind for the most destructive spell he knew, he imitated Goyle ( or maybe it was Crab?) and proceeded to summon Fiendfyre, causing the consumption of Voldemort's' body. If one listened close enough (which Harry did) one could hear the shrieks of Voldemort's' soul as it was consumed by the fire.

Magical historians would go on to posit that this was how he had destroyed the other soul containers, seeing as Neville quite obviously had the sword of Gryffindor, which was later returned to the Hat.

Hermoine would go on to write a research paper in which she would dub " the Potter effect" to describe the times when magic would simply not follow its own laws when around specific individuals (Harry would hypothesize that the consistency of the potter effect occurring was a definitive way of measuring a magicals "awesomeness".) Two millennia into the future Muggle linguists would come to the belief that the common slang " a potter's effect" was used to reference the myths of man being crafted from clay and was supposed to mean that an action was successful through the help of 21st century myth: Lord Potter AKA Potter of Potters, who was said to help people through magic or godly intervention.

Sadly for Harry and a few others he was not only a novice at being actively vigilant, the Dursley's for all their inadequacy had taught reactionary methods rather than proactive ones, and so, being not only sore and tired from fighting in an admittedly short siege, dying, and then coming back only to kill the reigning dark lord twice, he missed the dark wisp of smoke that arose from one of the bodies and fled to the forbidden forest.

Harry unaware of this turned to regard the stunned masses before him and Neville who was putting out his burning hair. Now not being in the healthiest state of mind having gone from determinedly suicidal to just about every other combination of determined and an emotionally charged adjective under the sun, his reaction to the attention of so many people would have to be excused. Summoning the resurrection stone silently (leaving it there was a recipe for disaster) he twisted, disapparating and leaving behind a perpetually stunned mass of people.

Grimmauld place 1998

When Harry arrived from killing his first Darklord he naturally proceeded to smack into the front door his state of mind not doing him any favors. Opening the door to enter he absently congratulated himself for having the foresight to have Hermione remove the practically useless " security" features that guarded the entrance. On his way to the master bedroom he called Kreacher. With a pop to herald his arrival the very same appeared.

" Yes master Potter" Kreacher rasped in his anything but Dulcet tones.

" I need you to first make sure the house is safe, then I want you to go to my friends and tell them that I'm healthy..." He made sure not to say "fine" or come hell or high water Hermoine would make sure of his health, she was suspicious like that. "...and will get in touch with them when I wake up. Then tell Ginny that I understand she has more important things to do and if she needs anything she can get to me through you. You may then rest till I or she call on you again."

" Yes master Potter" and creature popped away again, he didn't usually speak to Kreacher this way since Hermione was usually around. But he simply responded better to a firm hand.

When he'd finally reached his bed and peeled himself out of his clothes he set the deathly hallows on his nightstand, flopped onto the bed, curled up under the covers and promptly fell asleep.

? 1988 1 1/2 hours ago

As Harry touched the resurrection stone for the first time the power inherent in the Trinity of the deathly hallows responded to being in possession of a single person the first time in history, binding them together till death do them part.

Later when Harry " killed" Voldemort for the first time, the 698 deaths that resulted from this action were used to power an awakening for a being that had not been conscious for millennia and had not expected that change at any time soon.

After Harry had finally truly killed the Darklord the consciousness started to plan. If its goals were to be achieved it would first need information so as to be able to plot a proper course as it were. It facilitated this by exploiting the newly formed connection to gain insight into its host, for lack of a better term. Not one to leave a resource untapped, it sifted through the mountains of memories it had access to using the souls of the now dead Death Eaters so that it would be capable of projecting its chosen form. Thus when Harry burrowed into bed and fell to sleep, it was ready having already chosen the form deemed to be the most advantageous for the coming discussion.

Harry

After what seemed to be less than an instant he opened his eyes only to find himself lying on what to his hands had the texture of stone, though none of its hardness, feeling to him as if one had cast upon it a cushioning charm. Standing up brought neither the tiredness of the day's battle nor the aches that should have come with it.

As he looked around himself, now aware of his condition if not its reason, he saw that he was surrounded by a roiling black mist that formed a corridor through its absence. This led to a room in which a low black table and two chairs had formed on either side. On the chair farthest from him sat an inhumanly beautiful woman, close proximity to veela having given him something of a sense for it, the unnatural perfection precipitated by her near perfect symmetry being a tell. Walking towards what was likely his seat he took the time to study the being in front of him: long straight black hair, ruby red lips, hard brown eyes, slender body, long shapely legs and pale milky white skin, in addition to regal posture and an undeniable presence made this female one of the most beautiful he had ever seen. Having taken the walk to appreciate her he set his mind to the task of determining the reason for his presence and the best way to proceed from here.

Taking his seat he proceeded to ask the question of supreme importance.

" Good evening, do you have tea?"

If he was to die here he would do it proudly tea in hand and back straight. The woman taking a moment to shake the stupor from her mind snapped her fingers materializing two pre-filled teacups. Utilizing the moment of silence created by him partaking of the tea she rejoined with:

" Good evening to you as well Mr. Potter. We have much to talk about and you have much to do when you wake."

Harry nodded in response slightly surprised his life seemed not to be at an end.

" To keep this talk efficient I will proceed to monologue for the most part. Ask questions if you have any." Another nod.

" I am Death, to be more specific I am a death. There are a few death gods and the like, Hades, Osiris, and Thanatos being some of them. This has led to negative consequences for me. The main one being that I get a very few souls as things stand. Eventually when those gods cease to exist I will absorb them and their domain, this will not only take a long time but also leave me weak in the interim. This is where you and the hallows come in, the purpose of the hallows was to find a worthy bearer, the criteria were many, the most important one was that you had to have completed a prophecy thus rendering you marked both as someone to whom a prophecy applies (this allows me to slot you into a new prophecy if useful) and as someone who has completed his/her own prophecy, thus keeping you from activating a bunch of them by accident or being roped in by an already existing one. Any questions so far?"

Harry took a moment to assimilate this windfall of knowledge.

" Do I have a choice in this?" Harry could practically feel his self righteousness compelling him to throw a tantrum at the amount of bullshit he had to put up with.

" No, you do not have a choice, this is the price you paid when you decided not to die at the crossing."

'Well shit!' Harry thought tiredly 'would have been nice to know that beforehand.'

" Now, while you don't have a choice in fulfilling your duty, you will be given as much freedom as practical. I see no reason why our partnership cannot be mutually beneficial."

Now this Harry could approve of! This was more than Dumbledore had ever offered him. He would have to be careful not to trust too quickly though, that had burned him before. Besides CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

" Knowing who and what I am as well as the reason for your presence we can move on to your title, as well as the duties associated with it. Finally I will tell you the benefits and drawbacks associated with the title. Titles as you should have been taught in history of magic are not simply labels that are given but often have intrinsic effects. You are now, both in title and in effect, my representative on earth, my high priest. We will have to come up with a sufficiently dramatic name in the future. Your duties extend to gaining followers, and helping me gain power. Ways of doing this usually involve you doing something of epic importance to one or more people. This is why being fate marked is so important. I can simply have you take the leading role in a prophecy of importance, from which you not only gain access to the skills you learn on your quest (thus increasing your personal power) as well as monetary, political, and or interpersonal rewards but due to the inherent nature of prophecy you will almost always affect many people in a profound way.

On a side note you should anticipate ending up with a harem, seeing as you will likely accrue many a life debt. The second piece of advice I want to impart upon you is to create something of a hobby for yourself, creating a multidimensional library that you will fill with everything in existence would be a sufficiently lofty goal as to alleviate boredom.

Moving on to the positives and negatives: you are practically immortal. The reason for this being that should you die your soul is sent to me, if your body can still sustain life, IE death by killing curse, you can simply re-enter your body. If your body cannot sustain life you either spend a lot of power to gain a new one or you go the Voldemort route possessing beings till you gain a body another way. When I say "power" I really mean souls, you can gain these by directly causing the death of human beings or humanoids. Most things that can learn from experience and increase their complexity will have a soul, this in fact includes animals. There is a distinction between the quality of one soul and another, complexity is what measures the quality of a soul.

Harry preceded to squint his eyes together " So you, want me, to wander around sacrificing people to you for power?" He asked incredulously, if she thought this was going to happen she obviously hadn't set the hallow search criteria well.

"You seem to assume that you will be" she made air quotes " 'slaughtering' innocents. This is where the brilliance of prophecy comes into play" Harry snorted at the idea of Prophecy being brilliant. " there are many beings whose death would make the world a better place, Voldemort's' evil is not the worst, not by a long shot. So while you go saving worlds you also gain access to souls that you can use to gain many other abilities, becoming a metamorphmagus for instance.

A negative of this ability is that most beings will simply not live as long as you, and the resources required to keep them alive with you are immense.

The second negative of this title is that you'll be working a lot. Generally I plan to send you somewhere to complete your mission and whether that takes minutes, years, or decades you will stay until you are finished. Some of this can be mitigated, time travel being of use for this. After a successful operation you'll usually have something around a year as downtime.

The last thing of note is that your timeline is permanent. If you were to travel back in time you would in fact be traveling to a separate Dimension that is identical till that point in time. This is slightly flexible, with time Turner's being a good example seeing as they allow one to travel to the past in which the future is already certain, subjectively. Another nitpick would be pausing a timeline allowing you to be gone a few years but returning an instant after you left. Believe me, you will be very thankful for this ability in the future.

Moving from the theoretical to the practical. The hallows are, for the moment, almost exactly as they were before you left, you can spend power to enhance them.

I will now give you access to the three abilities you will need to fulfill your duties.

The first skill is legilimency, you know what this does. The second ability works in harmony with the third one and allows you the ability to create mental "masks" that hide aspects of you from all manners of detection, excluding things that for example can visually be witnessed. It is imperative that you use this the moment you are able, being my chosen "colors" your magic and it's feel would be most distressing to the average mortal.

The third and final skill you will gain is both the most important as well as the most useful you will ever gain, bar none. What I'm giving you access to is your soulscape, it is very similar to a mindscape, with a few key differences. For instance if you were to create a representation of your resolve it might be a pond or a lake. The cleaner the lake the stronger your resolve, in a mindscape cleaning the Lake would have a symbolic effect and would indirectly affect you by making you aware of the problem, in a soulscape this is not so. The increase of control now makes this change have both symbolic as well as actual effects.

An example of the danger inherent in this would be if one were to imagine a tree that represents say… Your hatred for Albus Dumbledore. If you were to use the waters of your resolve to water the tree and you did so using a hose for a minute a day you would be in control of its growth. But if you were to put the tree at the edge of the lake the tree would grow uncontrolled and your hatred would eventually exceed the wanted size. Thus you may end up strangling the headmaster in the great hall because he ended the dinner early costing you your treacle tart."

Now Harry was impressed, killing someone over treacle tart in private was one thing (it was the food of the gods after all) but doing so in publicly was less than intelligent. He did know how to build a mindscape, he had read the books Snape gave him, he'd simply never gotten that far.

" Cumulatively that costs you all but one unit of power. I would advise you to set up a system that counts them in your soulscape. You'll wake in 9 hours real world time. I would advise you to get on good terms with the Goblins, they will be most useful. I look forward to our next meeting, have a pleasant week."

With that abrupt ending she snapped her fingers and Harry saw black.

Harry

Harry sat in the dark surrounded by the billowing dark gray mist that was the material his will would give form to. Having been a Gryffindor for most of his life acting before thought was his modus operandi, but here he had a chance to reevaluate his opinion and make actual near immediate changes! Sadly he had nowhere to enact the changes, so his inner Gryffindor charged ahead any way. Harry knew that the more alien he made his mind function the more difficult an enemy would find attacking him. This is due to an enemy mind having to function through the legilimency probe which acted like a translator to overcome the inherent difference in individual thought process, legilimency being influenced by the user's will, their chosen form of attack (so a battering ram to blow through shields etc.) and finally the experience of their probe when it came to translating the attack into a viable equivalent.

The most alien and simultaneously useful thing Harry could think of was a computer. Now Harry had never owned a computer, but he had occasionally managed to gain access to one, as well as a few SCI Fi novels, so he was reasonably sure he could create a functional mental approximate.

To start with he created a very comfortable office chair, having heard from uncle Vernon these were preeminently important. Next he willed a curved table into existence, it was made of Mahogany, not the most technological of materials, but this was his mind so he would do what he wanted. Having created most of the periphery he moved onto the computer itself. Naturally the power was supplied by his will and as such was effectively limitless, a good quality to have so as to not accidentally have it shut off. Drawing on his SCI Fi "knowledge" he materialized a holographic interface that followed the curve of his table so that he could look ahead and 90° to the left or right and still have space to work with. Now came the difficult part, seeing as power was unlimited and storage space was the mind itself (making this effectively limitless as well) his only limit was in Processing Power.

Before Harry did anything else he wanted to know what he had to work with, not wanting to accidentally turn himself into an invalid by having too little Processing Power to move. So Harry used his still unregulated mind to have the monitor display what he had available. The monitor showed he had two processors to work with, one was already permanently assigned to function for him personally, (which is how he thought now) it had a ludicrously high clock compared to the other one. In contrast the second processor only had a maximum clock of two GHz, though this was easily five times as fast as the current real world speed. In contrast to the first one it had four different cores, which he could assign to four different tasks simultaneously.

Harry immediately assigned one core to cataloging and archiving his memories. The second core was set to scan his physical body, magic, and emotions, then interface with the first processor so it would gain real time input as well as data on himself. His third core was set to mental defense and was to analyze and then defend against all threats to his mind. Finally the fourth core was the bridge between his mind processor and this extra processor. Harry told his bridge to have him sleep until either his first or second processor were finished or his third processor was activated.

Two real world hours later, 6 hours remaining:

When Harry was once again conscious the first thing he saw was a warning that his second core gave " Due to limited-knowledge databanks scan utility is incomplete.". Waving that message away three screens came up, he moved the bar showing archiving progress to the far right. The second window which showed his current emotions in graph form as well as certain psychological stati, such as impulsiveness (which he left alone for now, it had been useful after all and he did not want to change too much too quickly) paranoia (of which he was proud) and cunning ( which he turned from intermittent to permanent), he moved to the far left. The third window showed his physical body and had tabs for abilities, skills, and attributes, as well as miscellaneous. Harry navigated to the miscellaneous tab and hid his Master of Death title using his mask ability. At the bottom right he could see his soul points: currently at one. Not wanting to mess with anything else he had the bridge put him to sleep till the 9 hours were up.

Forbidden forest: 30 minutes after Harry disincorporated Riddle the first time

After her lord had been disincorporated once more she had immediately felt the drain upon her magic. She was not surprised of course, she was a Black after all, she had known her marks purpose. Sadly being a Black had prevented her from telling her master that not only did the black family rituals supersede his slave mark (should they ever be called on, unlikely with the house in ruins) but her own fallback plans would have done the same. She had tried everything to make him aware, from having him search her very mind to the imperius or veritasium. Eventually she had to settle and trust in her beloved master, not that she had ever doubted him, he had defeated death after all! He had said so.

But here she sat… or really floated, seeing as she didn't have a body, and thought about what she should do. It wasn't like her master was dead, so she would have to make him a new body this time, before some lesser beings could gain the honor! Following the call of her mark she made her way south. Had she known feeling it was possible in this form she would have killed herself the first time. She should tell her lord of her ignorance, maybe he would be merciful and crucio her for a full minute! Maybe, maybe he would even lay a hand on her physically! The mere thought caused her spectral form to quiver in joyous anticipation. Mind awhirl Bellatrix Black-Lestrange flew to where the pull, which she assumed to be her mark, took her.

2 1/2 hours later: Grimmauld Place

When Bellatrix arrived outside Grimmauld Place she quickly cycled through a multitude of reactions. Her first was surprise that her lord resided in the Black family's London residence, They were an ancient and noble family, the idea that this was their main or even only home was ridiculous. Surprise at her lord's place of residence quickly morphed into shock that he had pierced the fidelius that she was now sure had lain upon the house. Bellatrix, who had not become Voldemort's most feared lieutenant by being stupid, quickly theorized that in her more open state that the dark mark had given her the necessary information so she could attend to our masters needs, much like a house self. Beings that she had always gotten on surprisingly well with, or maybe not, seeing as they both had similar motivations. As Bellatrix made her way through the house she picked up on the dark aura that filled the building. Such a feeling was not new, but it had always been only undertones that spoke of both rituals (only minor ones in this house) and the extensive presence of dark objects. Now the house was filled with a roiling miasma that had she not aligned herself so firmly with the darker side of magic would have sapped her strength and twisted her mind to its purpose. Whatever contingency had brought her lord back to her this time had to have been of a power she could scarcely comprehend. Not having noticed it till now spoke of a worrying weakness to her form. Bella would be surprised if the muggles five blocks away weren't having the most horrific night terrors their minds could conceive. She didn't mind of course her lord hated them with a passion,so naturally she did as well.

When Bellatrix entered her lord's room, an honor she had never before been privy to, her master's true brilliance and cunning rocked her to the core.

For before Bellatrix Black-Lestrange lay Harry James Potter, Boy-who-lived, champion of the light, and Man-who-won, all in her lord's possession. All the hopes of the people had been with this boy, he would be the next Albus Dumbledore. People would worship his every word, with careful planning his fearsome reputation would grant him near immunity from the populous. Bella had known that as things were going Lord Voldemort could not have stayed in power forever, eventually someone would lead a revolution and succeed. But now, her lord had nearly the same influence, the adoration of the masses, and the Leader-of-the-Light mask from behind which he could work!

Bellatrix decided to wait for her lord to awaken. She would spend 10 minutes thinking in a corner about how they could hide his dark aura. When that too disappeared she would simply marvel at her lords genius, to have planned so far ahead. Had she been able she would have sighed...dreamily.

9:00 AM, Grimmauld Place-Harry James Potter

When Harry woke he had the bridge go through what would in the future be the very basics of his return to consciousness protocol.

First he had his body and mind checked for changes: all changes were benign or sleep related, as far as his limited experiences could tell him.

Second he checked his immediate surroundings: his mundane senses were pitiful, he did not even have magical ones.

His final task was the creation of a to do list, this consisted of: checking on his friends, learning of the consequences of Voldemort's' death, and treating with Gringotts.

Having completed his preliminary checks Harry rolled out of bed and opened his eyes.

He promptly sat back down.

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When Bellatrix saw her beloved master gracefully (in her eyes) rise from his slumber she hastily made to the center of the room. Her attempt at genuflection was stifled by her need to will herself into a non amorphous form, but she persevered nevertheless.

" My lord, your most loyal servant has returned to you, speak and I will do my utmost to see your will done!" She spoke with utmost reverence, hereby reaffirming her loyalty and tying herself to him by acknowledging him as master of her mark. " Though without a body my utility is limited so I might not perform to your satisfaction." She finished slightly mournful.

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Harry's life, even for a wizard, had been anything but normal which had given him a certain resistance to the unusual. Therefore his newly active cunning came to play much earlier than would otherwise have been possible. So he did what seemed most natural, he imitated Voldemort.

" My recent victory leaves me temporarily limited, I will need access to your mind to make certain of your current situation. Then we will see about crafting your body." This seemed like a sufficiently vague statement to gloss over the fact that he had no clue who he was talking to, as well as grandiose enough to match his opposites tone. Finally he had implied it should lower whatever barriers it may have around its mind without definitively stating that he couldn't have gotten through if it didn't indulge him. He hoped his opposite did in fact have a mind, that being his statements' only obvious weakness.

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Bellatrix, completely unaware of Harry's thoughts was beyond ecstatic. Her lord only ever spoke quite this dramatically when he was sure of his victory. Though when it came to Potter his senses seemed to have fooled him on occasion. Of course now she knew it was all an elaborate ploy to fool even the most paranoid of observers. Not only that but he was even deigning to enter her mind with her permission. She considered this the highest form of recognition on his part, allowing her to showcase her devotion, instead of bypassing her shields himself to showcase his power as he did with the others.

" My mind is always open to you my lord. I will not be able to remain active for very long as staying corporeal is taking much of my effort, I believe I will adjust soon though."

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Harry hoped that it meant the 'always open' comment literally. Thanking his foresight he set the bridge to refine his legilimency with the data it gained from his attempts, until he had a core he could dedicate to this ability exclusively. Without further ado Harry called upon his death given knowledge and wandlessly cast legilimency.

To best make use of his unique mind Harry came up with an uncommon method of attack. His brute force method was fairly simple and was based upon a piercing attack. Using the advantage he gained from the speed with which his mental cores could work he would throw the equivalent of mental spikes at his opponents shield and wear it down. The more experience he gained the more powerful each throw. When stealth was essential he would throw the equivalent of grains of sand until he found the weakness which he could exploit to pass through undetected, here experience would allow him to make the grain smaller and thus less noticeable.

It took a less than a 100th of a second to move past the beings natural defenses. Having access to who he now knew was Bellatrix left him in a bit of a quandary. Bella was irreversibly insane, this manifested in an unbelievably powerful obsession with whomever she identified as her master. This having changed from her head of house to Lord Voldemort when it became her duty to serve him. She was also a bit of a sadist, though this was a conditioned trait to please the Darklord. The quandary came about because while she would never feel remorse, she truthfully couldn't be considered mentally culpable by reason of insanity. Since he couldn't kill her and both the government and the public very much would, insanity being considered impossible in wizards and witches much like most other muggle illnesses, she had become his responsibility. He could not trust her as she was now so he would have to work to secure her loyalty on an emotional level. Harry had the bridge place a part of his soul in hers so that what he was about to do could not be done to turn her against him. He then had the bridge shift the loyalty she felt to Voldemort, whom she believed to be possessing the body, to the soul he had placed in her.

Though he didn't know, he had inadvertently created half of a soul bond. More importantly though this would allow her to always know when he was there and who he was by following their connection.

Harry was rather leery of what he had just done seeing as he had, in many ways, infringed upon her free will. But he was unsure how else he could guarantee both his safety and her compliance. He was thankful that at least in this way she might gain some of the validation that seemed to be her raison d'etre.

That done he left her mind before he did anything more that made him feel like an evil git.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** **All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. All other concepts and ideas from other books or stories belong to their respective authors. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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When her Lord entered her mind she relaxed. That deep seated need that she had been born with and her father had exploited and cultivated to bend her to his will once again being partially sated. The Blacks had usually left their children to their own devices, but after Andromeda ran away harsh methods had been employed to keep them in line. Using a variant on the Horcrux ritual Narcissa and Bellatrix had been bound to the house, taking much of their freedom from them. Bellatrix mind had always been fragile so, when the piece of her soul was bound to the head of house title, instead of becoming aloof like Narcissa by losing parts of her emotional range, it created the need for an emotional anchor as a substitute for the missing piece of her soul. This could be partially alleviated when another Legilimens entered her mind. Voldemort´s probing of her mind in the process of teaching her occlumency, as part of her tutoring in the dark arts, had been the cementing of her obsession. This had in fact severely hampered her occlumency seeing as she never truly wanted her shields to work.

But when Harry placed the piece of his soul into hers he had filled the gap and the emptiness that pervaded her being vanished.

Sadly for Bellatrix mental health this did not remove her dependence, though it did finally give her something to depend on.

Still… For a woman who had grown up in one of, if not the darkest houses in England, where she had been routinely emotionally and physically abused, who had then gone on to serve a similarly unhealthy (for Bella would deny it being… unpleasant) time with England's resident Darklord, as well as spent the interim in Azkaban, going from " My life's goal is to be continually mind raped by Voldemort." to " Please leave that piece of your soul in me because it has let me find some small measure of peace!", well… One might consider that quite an upgrade.

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Harry, naturally unaware of the titanic impact of his actions, was more than a little perplexed when on leaving Bellatrix´ mind he was greeted with a quiet sigh of contentment while the wraith-like-humanoid lost cohesion and formed a black puddle upon the floor.

Having wanted to actually talk to his new minion… er charge, he heaved a great sigh and called out: " Kreacher!"

With a pop the elf appeared. After a quick look between a naked Harry sitting on the edge of the bed and the large puddle of darkness at his feet Kreacher looked at Harry in a way that he hadn't since the tale of Regulus death.

" I's not be cleaning that." And with some muttering about filthy masters popped away again.

Harry knew this could not be a good day if he was face palming this early.

Not one to be daunted he attempted to pinch the edge of the smoke-puddle, hoping his Master of Death appellation might have a useful hidden feature. For Harry was sure he hadn't been told everything about his new powers. This had never happened before and he doubted it would now. 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE!'

Surprisingly Harry was able to gain a grip on the formless entity. Harry had the bridge make a note to be on the lookout for a negative cropping up in his future, karma having always been scrupulously fair, at best.

Puddle-Bellatrix reacted by immediately surging up his arm and then wrapping around his chest where she stayed pulsing in what he hoped was content.

Having decided that reacting to every weird, vexing, exasperating, etc. thing that happened around him would waste too much time Harry simply went about his morning ablutions. Though his shower was complicated by Bella refusing to leave skin to smoke contact with him. After breakfast he ordered Kreacher to check if his friends were awake yet, they weren't, and to ask the Hogwarts' elves if they wanted to help him "move" the books, Grimoires, scrolls etc. of Voldemort's' followers to the storage at his house. Harry never had forgotten that Kreacher completely bypassed the wards around Voldemort's horcrux because he was asked to, so he decided to re-appropriate this treasure trove of knowledge while he could.

Willing the three deathly hallows to himself, an ability he had till that moment only been subconsciously aware of, he put on the ring, draped the cloak about himself, took the wand in hand and side along apparated himself and Bellatrix (who was still hiding under his shirt) to Hogwarts.

Hogwarts

It was still quite early so not many people walked about, this only increased the feelings a battle torn Hogwarts evoked.

But Harry had things to do and webs to spin thus he ignored the castle's dilapidated state and made his way to the headmaster's office. Bypassing the Gargoyle sentinel and the numerous wards with the help of his cloak Harry immediately set to stealing every medium capable of retaining any sort of information, while studiously ignoring the portraits shrieks of outrage. Having indulged his newfound horder instincts, making liberal use of expansion charms on his pockets as well as shrinking and feather light charms for the loot, he took the sword of Gryffindor off the desk (he wondered why Neville had given it up) and left without so much as a backward glance.

On his way out of the Hogwarts' wards he sent off a few reparos at the main walls, more out of courtesy than anything. Had Harry's morning been any less unexpected the sight of most of the outside damage to the castle repairing itself with an astonishingly loud grinding noise would have stunned Harry into inaction, as it was he merely hummed noncommittally. As Harry apparated away he wonder if this was why Dumbledore always seemed so loopy?

Diagon Alley

Using the moment it took to steady from apparition Harry surveyed the Goblin bank. Thankfully escaping on the dragon had not left marks that could be seen from below.

Removing his cloak's hood, and thereby canceling his invisibility which made it take on a shadowy grey color, he moved up to the first step and, affecting a mild mannered demeanor, spoke to the right goblin guard.

" Good morning sir. I am Harry Potter" he gave a slight bow and smile " and would be thankful if you would tell whom it may concern that I would be happy to strike an accord."

Predictably the goblin sent what he assumed was a derisive sneer "No, I don't think I will wizard. Gringotts has barred you from its halls."

" I'm sure we can meet outside your esteemed establishment, you see I managed to… remove the Darklord last night. Sadly many upstanding Purebloods followed him in his demise, coincidence I'm sure. But this will leave me with much public approval and I would not wish the goblins to suffer under the public's..." he hmmed thoughtfully as if searching for a word " mis-guided" leaving a short pause after 'mis' to make it clear that he would be doing the guiding " anger. I'm sure if you explain the situation to the relevant authority they will see the profit to be had." Here Harry flashed the sword of Gryffindor.

Musing on the efficacy of Dumbledore's methods, now experiencing their usefulness, he had the bridge go through his talks with Dumbledore to assimilate the useful, while he waited for the now noticeably paler goblin to return from wherever he had scurried off to.

When the guard returned in the presence of Klanchief Hooknife (as seen on his name tag) Harry returned his attention to present.

" Greetings Chief Hooknife. I'm glad it seems we may come to an agreement. To keep things short and to the point I will tell you what I consider an acceptable price on my part, if you find it unacceptable you will tell me and I will leave."

Hooknife was surprised at the forthrightness of this human, though it was pleasant.

" Very well Mr. Potter. Name your proposed restitution."

Harry allowed his eyes to sharpen, though he kept his genial smile " In return for killing Lord Voldemort as well as for my word not to turn the public against you I would have the Nation forget the necessary theft." Here he once again showed the sword of Gryffindor. " By returning twice stolen property I would ask the boon of being a valued customer once more, as well as forgiveness for the already mentioned theft."

Hooknife and Harry were both aware that the sword of Gryffindor was a gift used so the goblins could keep face. Seeing as Harry could force Gringotts using his public approval as well as the goblins inability to keep the sword in the first place. It's real value lay in the symbolic nature of returning stolen property to cancel his own theft.

Pleasantly surprised by not being heavy handedly coerced Hooknife gave Harry a pleased grin. " Your terms are acceptable." There was a light chime that signaled the acceptance and its binding nature. " I assume you are here for business. I will lead you to my office so that there will be no… misunderstanding with the guards."

On the way to what Harry now assumed was the Potter accounts, thus explaining why Hooknife had been chosen to speak with him, Harry had bridge prepare to analyze the information he was about to be given.

The office was filled with wood, from wooden desks and chairs to wooden paneling and shelves, something that surprised Harry greatly having assumed that a species which lived in the ground would use its most plentiful resource more generously. Obviously he had been wrong, or Hooknife was an atypical representation of his species. Harry made a mental note to research this, he planned his gifts (should he ever need to send a goblin one) to deliver the intended meaning, a compliment where he intended insult simply wouldn't do.

When both had taken their seat (Harry sitting straight, back not touching the chair, so he wouldn't squish Bellatrix) Hooknife began. " To begin I wish to make it clear that Gringotts does much more than function as a bank. The banks serve as our cities and through them we offer our various services. This accounting meeting is not in fact the only reason you would have been required to come here."

After a little pause Harry made a 'continue on' gesture to indulge the obvious dramatic.

" You see, having become lord of your house, to satisfy Magic," Harry could practically taste the capitals " there are a number of Rituals that need to be done. As it stands, you having killed Lord Voldemort as well as gained the houses bound to him, you must do even more rituals to see if the separate family magic's accept you as lord or merely temporary carrier(unless you die without children or spouses). Naturally all this will be rather expensive." Here the goblin gave a predatory grin " The first step to all of this is of course going over your finances. I will need a drop of your blood."

Harry proceeded to prick his finger with the needle Hooknife handed him. A few weeks later he would scold himself for being so trusting, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

After Hooknife pulled a piece of parchment from his desk and taped it with the needle, which promptly burned itself to slag, Harry asked him to elaborate on what was happening.

" Well Mr. Potter, this parchment will fill itself with the information pertaining to your families'. It is not complete seeing as you have not completed the rituals but it will give us most of the financial information. Each family will have its own stack as the necessary parchments will come into existence when needed, the process should take no more than a couple of minutes."

Harry was not in the least surprised when 10 minutes later the folders showed no sign of stopping their growth. The goblin was naturally struck speechless.

Letting loose a quiet but clearly annoyed sigh he snapped his fingers to bring Hooknife back to attention. " Come on, we have to get to the door so we don't accidentally get boxed in. Get some help so we can get this mess organized." On the way out he took a folder with him, no reason he couldn't get a head start. Besides the more time bridge had the more useful it could be. When 35 minutes later the deluge finally stopped the room was nearly packed to the brim. It would take them nearly 6 hours to work their way through the mountains of paperwork.

3:00 PM Gringotts

Finally having worked through the portfolios they came to a startling conclusion: he wasn't half as rich as the mountains of paperwork made you believe, and he was still easily within the top 100 list when it came to MUGGLE money. When it came to the wizarding side of things, well, Binns had left out significant details when it came to wizarding geography. It seemed that the whole colonize-the-world craze England had gone through was far more long-term successful than anyone was led to believe. So Harry now owned large swaths of land from Canada through muggle America, the east, the African continent and so on. Funnily enough the main reason for its success had to do with the fact that slavery was extremely uncommon, not because it was deemed as morally reprehensible but because slavery required rituals to implement (and all rituals were classified as Dark magic). House elves created such a bond naturally and as such their enslavement was completely acceptable.

Anyway, in Harry's opinion this was all just about the opposite of good. This made him not only an extremely powerful person but also an extremely sought after one, something that turned his paranoia up to 11.

So Harry set about thinking up plans to obfuscate this from the public.

"Right, Hooknife, I need you to set up a charity to help relieve the populous. Make sure the public believes I'm using most of my fortune to set this up. Then we need to create covers and aliases for most of these houses. Wherever there are still sufficiently close relations we make them take secrecy oaths and other necessities so we can play as if the house passed on to them. Our main goal is to decrease or prevent this knowledge from getting out."

Hooknife: " I will also need several people to help me run the books and what not so we can make them seem like separate accounts."

" Exactly, good idea, let's see… I will need a private military branch so we will need to see who and or what is competent and fits within my morals. Personal security will be a must, to facilitate this I will need wards (here the goblin grinned), bodyguards and the like. I will need political power, national and international, proxies and the like will help in Britain. Though I'm not sure what to do on the international front. Besides throwing money around, something I'd rather avoid. Finally I need to increase my personal power. This will be mostly knowledge so books of all types as well as teachers, wizarding and muggle." 'Plus, I will need souls to increase or gain abilities that I otherwise couldn't. Bellatrix should be of help with that.'

"Anything else?"

" Yes, those rituals will need to be done. Though if you plan on learning about rituals I would advise you wait until you know what you're doing. Incidentally Gringotts has excellent teachers when it comes to such subjects. While the titles and the abilities that come with them are very useful be careful not to rush."

Harry nodded, while he tried to be as paranoid… thorough as possible things always slipped through the cracks, such as forgetting that magical creatures probably knew many useful magic's that wizards did not.

" Hooknife, I'm glad we could reach an understanding. Send me an owl when you have something to update me on. Should I need something I will do the same. May our partnership be prosperous for us both."

With a final nod to the goblin Harry made his way out of Gringotts.

Using the time to plan his next steps Harry called for Kreacher.

" Master?", croaked the aged elf upon arrival.

" Report on the status of the 'relocation' effort."

" Kreacher and the other elves be finished moving books. The house not be large enough to hold all books so only the library be filled and the rest be moved to the vaults for storage by nasty goblins, Master."

" Your work does you credit, Kreacher. Tell the other elves I am thankful for their help. The house of Black has grown much through this conflict. I want you to find two elves, one male one female, and teach them all they should know so that they may serve the most noble and ancient house of Black. When their training is finished, know that should you wish it your head will have a place of honor upon the wall."

Kreacher's teary eyed reaction once again reminded Harry that not every being worked the same.

" You are to find uniforms for each elf I employ and finally I want you to survey all of my properties as well as see to the health of all my subjects. You're to list everything of note such as: things in need of repair, health concerns, dereliction of duty and so on. You may delegate as necessary. I wish to have Grimmauld place cleaned up, though this is not a priority."

Were Kreacher not such a surly bastard Harry was sure he would have genuflecting in thanks for such an immense workload. Instead stars joined the tears in his eyes. " With pleasure, Master."

After creature popped away to do his thing Harry turned his mind back to his to do list.

First he needed an owl or some other means for communication.

Then he wanted as many order forms or catalogues as he could get his hands on.

Third he would need to start working through his finances so he could send Hooknife a letter detailing what he wanted to do, which debts to pay off when, how and so on. If he still had time he would see if he could contact his friends. Should luck smile upon him he would either still have time to research Etiquette and customs or, and he hoped it was this one, have another talk with Bellatrix. She might even stop sticking to him like a tick, though that seemed overly hopeful at the moment.

Having set his path Harry drew up his hood, without allowing his invisibility to activate, and set off into the alley.

The trip through the Alley was simultaneously uneventful and filled with frenetic activity. His search for an owl had, contrarily, netted a Raven. She seemed quite intelligent and had the necessary enhancements and training to fulfil her duty. Following what Harry feared was becoming a Theme she took the position on his left shoulder and stayed in contact with him through most of the trip. While bustling about collecting catalogues (he would search Knockturn at a later date) he noticed people whispering about Voldemort having been killed "supposedly". Naturally this scared the living daylights out of Harry, so using all possible haste he was out of the Alley by four.

Grimmauld Place 4:00 PM ,Harry

After apparating home Harry immediately made his way to the Study. Placing the catalogues to the side he put the now unshrunk and unlightened book of finance (charmed to have a never ending supply of pages as well as be auto updating) on the hardwood desk. Sinking into the supremely comfortable leather chair he heaved a sigh of content. Having basked in how much he'd already accomplished Harry rallied and set to work on the monstrosity that was his finances.

Four hours and many many reams of parchment later, and only really through severe abuse of his mental processor, Harry had worked his way through the convoluted mess that was pure blood finance. He had annulled no less than 27 different marriage contracts all between houses that were now his, 17 more had been as collateral to debts he would now pay off. There was exactly one contract he could not weasel his way out of, at least not with the limited legal knowledge he possessed. It existed between the house of Black and a house Greengrass. He remembered the name but his memories were nowhere near cataloged and so he only had a vague recollection of pale blond hair and ice blue eyes. Oh, he had almost forgotten, this contract had been Sirius main motivation to start on the path of a playboy. He had said that it was in fact one of his greater regrets, not because it hadn't been fun, but because it had been incredibly insulting to his Betrothed.

Then Harry had worked through the debts owed to houses internally. This had taken the most time because Harry had to understand why money was flowing somewhere, for instance a few debts were in fact indicative of money laundering using legal loopholes while others were simply the normal illegal type. Not only this but Harry tried to make it seem as if the houses had not been consolidated, thus maintaining the legal fiction for exploitative purposes and lowering the amount of problems Harry would have to deal with from the public and the Ministry.

After that Harry proceeded to external debts, going in both directions, where for the most part he lacked the necessary information to make informed decisions. This trend continued when it came to the individual businesses and other minutiae.

Having finished he shrank everything as small as he could and stuffed it into a lightweight plastic cylinder that he had summoned. He sent this to Hooknife with his Raven to get approval and set this scheme in motion.

After relaxing for a few minutes he thought about what he could do for the last bit of the day. He really wanted to get in touch with at least Ron and Hermione, he was a bit worried about his talk with Ginny. The fact that he had sent her to Hogwarts in an imbecilic attempt to protect her (really... sending your love interest into enemy territory without protection usually meant a quick death, at best) and now having a marriage contract with another woman a bittersweet reunion was probably the best he could hope for.

But Harry also needed to look into laws and etiquette pertaining to his marriage contract, head of house positions and so on.

Finally he needed to speak to the limpet that was Bellatrix. These weren't the only things he needed to do but he only had a few hours left before he would need to sleep.

He sent a patronus to Ron and Hermione stating his hopes that he could come by tomorrow without intruding on family matters. Thus for the first time knowingly invoking the unassuming persona that had allowed him to coast through interpersonal relationships till now.

Going to his room and sitting as he had that morning Harry took off his shirt and steeled himself for what he thought was coming. Pinching the smoke like substance he proceeded to pull it off so that he could talk to Bellatrix. Not quite surprisingly this was far more difficult than it had any right to be. Acting like she had during Harry's shower Bellatrix adamantly refused to separate from him. Eventually Harry's innate stubbornness won out though and he managed to fling her to the floor. While he took a moment to regain his breath Bellatrix reformed out of the puddle.

Taking in her form Harry was slightly off put by the pout he saw on her face, though quite fetching it was not something he had imagined his godfather's murderer ever doing.

Putting the thought aside for now Harry plastered the mask of affability back onto his face, modulated his voice to sound kind and caring he set on his way.

" Hello Bellatrix, I know we haven't always seen eye to eye in the past but I would prefer if we could keep things civil."

Inwardly Bellatrix was quite surprised it seemed her new master was unaware how complete his dominion was, the dark mark, headship of house Black, and his soul being the only thing to truly satisfy a craving left unfulfilled since her teenage years. She was slightly miffed that he seemed to discount her devotion, not that she was unaware of how he had gone about gaining it. To her this showed he was both level headed and intelligent enough to see her worth, cunning enough to play upon a perceived weakness and ruthless enough to do what he deemed necessary. All very attractive traits to the born Black. Of course been born a Black meant that she did not fawn over him like an idiot or give up any advantage she had without reason (this behavior being necessary with Voldemort to gain even the slightest hint of approval, though she told herself that he sometimes showed her affection, conveniently forgetting the needlessly harsh punishments, public insults etc.), so she did her best and give a REGAL nod.

For Harry's part he watched her face pass through a number of emotions that her general haziness made indecipherable till it settled and she gave a CURT nod. He thanked his goddess this seemed to be working out and tried his best to hide the effort it took to remember his hatred of Bella was misplaced.

" First I need to know whether you are… well healthy? Then if there's anything I can do to help you. When we've done that and our partnership is finalized by magical unbreakable vows.". Here she barely managed to suppress shaking her head at the apparent paranoia of her new master, conveniently forgetting that 24 hours ago she would've torn him limb from limb. " Actually we will start with the vow. Then I'll tell you my side and we put our heads together to plan for the future?" He tilts his head a little making it a question.

Bellatrix took a moment to think about his plan, something Voldemort had discouraged to his detriment, her shifted obsession allowed her to conclude. It seemed quite good but there might be a few problems. She made her opinion known to see how he would react.

" While your plan is generally solid, I would advise making the vow conditional so you can release me from it should this become necessary. Not only is this a basic precaution for all rituals, which an unbreakable vow is. But I'm bound to you through many ties and until we know how they all interact having it permanent may be premature."

Harry saw sense in this. " You make a good point. If the oaths might muck things up it could be better to make it an oath of truthfulness and relevant completion. Having it start and end through a phrase would be best."

Bellatrix nodded her ascent, happy that he seemed willing to listen to others.

Going through the oath was a bit more complicated without a third person to function as the binder, but they managed.

Harry started with the opening and closing statements as well as the most important question.

" Fumblemore fucks gay goats on Fridays."

A phrase Harry was quite sure wouldn't be coming up in casual conversation anytime soon.

" Do you plan to act in a manner that is not conducive to MY best interest?"

" Yes, I plan to act in a manner that is conducive to what I CONSIDER to be in YOUR and MY best interest. I cannot think of a situation in which I would work against that goal so long as my mind has not been perverted from the state that I now consider to be my default. I'm also not working against that goal now."

Harry was happy with that answer, had she not clarified to subjective best interest at the minimum he would've considered the vow a failure.

" Good" he said with a smile " now, are you healthy and what do you deem as prudent steps to increase your well being or ability?"

Here Bellatrix sent a shy smile. Questioning her health already showed more attention than Voldemort ever had. " I am as healthy as my form allows. It would be prudent to return me to a body. I have the necessary things set up in a safe house under stasis so we can precede with that whenever you are ready. I will be able to summon my wand to me as soon as I have the body, though I might need to go to a wand crafter to have it tuned now that I carry… a piece of you inside of me." Had Harry not known this was Bellatrix Black-Lestrange he might have assumed she was blushing. " Most things will depend on how my body and wand are on a magical level. In skill terms if you have someone I can practice occlumency with it would be most helpful. On a personal level…" if Harry hadn't known that the oaths would make her complete her sentence he might have pressed for more, as it was he allowed her to speak on her own time, something she was grateful for. " I will be incredibly grateful if I could check on my sister Narcissa." as if needing to make haste and explain she went on "Her husband and son have just died and if we allow the resentment to fester she could be a dangerous foe. But if we help her now she will be thankful and a very useful ally."

To Harry she seemed immensely vulnerable in that moment. she seemed to fear punishment, possibly for something as simple as care for someone other than her master. That she had still asked, though she feared retribution, humanized her more in Harry's eyes than she was likely to ever know.

This was why he had switched her loyalty instead of destroying her mind in such a way that she suffered unending agony until someone eventually found a way to kill a disembodied spirit. Because she was not inherently evil, cruel maybe, that she was a sadist was indisputable, that she would happily maim and torture in his name was also not in doubt. But she didn't do these things because she felt some burning need to hurt people. But because she was unable to prioritize his wishes as anything less than god's will. So long as he was careful with her there was no reason she could not be a "good" person in her own way.

The first step was making it clear that caring for other people was something he would not hold against her, for the most part. So he gave her his gentlest smile, far less difficult than it was before, and said: " I am glad that you care for your sister. You can help her even if she is of no use to us, I do not mind you being happy and would like it if you told me of things you would like to do. Though sometimes I will not be able to let you do something, asking once will cost you nothing."

What Harry left out was that having her come to him made it easier for him to keep an eye on her activities. Though it was not something he enjoyed thinking about having Bellatrix keep an eye on Narcissa gave him something of an early warning system there. If it became necessary he would know to think of ways to remove Misses Malfoy much earlier than otherwise possible. He would have to make it look like a Natural death, he did not want Bellatrix to believe she should view all others as expendable and thus never create true healthy relationships. Of course he had no plans to kill Narcissa now but CONSTANT VIGILANCE! was not for the faint of heart.

The smile he got back while not a blinding one was all the more honest for it.

" Besides that I cannot think of anything."

Going back over her full statement and the mention of occlumency Harry became quite excited.

" Thank you for being so thorough, we can't get your body today but I can help you with your occlumency. Through a number of rather unbelievable occurrences that I might tell you about in a moment I have a rather unique aptitude for occlumency and legilimency. The more I use them the better they will be, not only that but they will probably increase rather quickly. Would you be capable of continuing the conversation and defending against my attacks at the same time?"

Bellatrix was a bit surprised as she clearly remembered the Darklord saying Harry had no shields to speak of, but he had said he would explain later so she let it go. " Yes, I would. Splitting one's mind is considered an essential skill for high level duelists. One needs a minimum of two concurrent lines of thought for duelling. Most witches and wizards actually temporarily split at least one time on instinct. This is how we keep up, seeing as most spells average around 100 feet per second, one part anticipates the spell and comes up with a counter while the other controls aiming and movement. When you add occlumency and legilimency to the equation you've already reached four concurrent thought processes. I can keep five going for a good while."

After Harry finished smacking his past self for somehow missing this shit he did some quick math. When he was done his smile was practically blinding and the enthusiasm was apparent in his voice. " This is great. I can both attack and while we talk we can both practice."

Bellatrix was a bit surprised, this seemed a good bit more efficient than the typical, attack, analyze, rebuild, prepare method that she had been taught with. Then again most of the time people were not capable of both occlumency and legilimency as well as able to split their mind into at least four parts thus making this method viable. Still she felt a bit sad to burst his bubble by pointing out that variety was still necessary to train legilimency. Though that was easily and quickly done by probing passersby on crowded streets. Different magical species were a bit more difficult to get ahold of but it was still manageable with some effort. This was part of the reason the mind arts were so obscure.

Having come to a consensus Harry spent the next hour giving her a reasonably detailed overview of his life till this evening. He wasn't too happy about being so open but seeing as in the beginning she tore through his defenses like tissue paper there was very little point in being cagey. Besides a second point of view that he could trust to be honest was always appreciated. He wrapped up with the subject of the marriage contract and his need for etiquette lessons. Here he remembered that he still had to release her from her oath. Which he did so that she would not inadvertently give out something that she wished to keep private. The etiquette lessons ended up being an hour and 1/2 long and went from legal and organizational concerns to the logical: do not tell a woman she is fat, if she is change the diet surreptitiously. To helpful: if in doubt give chocolates, to weird: show physical signs of affection to people close to you… like co-conspirators. Here she paused and looked at Harry significantly.

He had no idea what she wanted so he quickly called upon one of her earlier lessons: if you don't know what to say deflect, deflect, deflect, denial never works and it makes you seem insensitive.

" I'm not very comfortable with physical contact, what should I do?"

The glint that entered her eye's was made all the more creepy by her being made of black and gray smoke, one of the less reflective substances in existence. Her reply of "Don't worry I'll help you with that." was also more ominous than he really thought it should be.

When their talk ended about 3 1/2 hours after it had started Harry was very sure she was not shifting cutely, he was very very sure. When she then straightened determinedly he was also very very sure that in whatever was coming up his opinion would be irrelevant.

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Bellatrix on her part was also very sure she hadn't been fidgeting, she had been looking for a perfect position so that when she worked up the nerve… er found the right moment, her magnanimous declaration would have that much more impact, very sure.

" Well, I said I would help you get over your discomfort so to uh… facilitate this I shall, till I have a body, be retaking my original position."

Using his momentary confusion she latched onto his arm, proceeded to ignore his flailing and sputtering, and made herself comfortable around his chest, inwardly making plans to permanently retain a place in contact with her master.

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After Bellatrix released what might have been a content shudder having bested his efforts to stop her. A far more flustered than usual Harry got ready for bed as well.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** **All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. All other concepts and ideas from other books or stories belong to their respective authors. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Self Edited. Thought making you wait till my editor was free would be uncalled for as it might take a while.**

Day Two

Grimmauld Place 9:00 AM

When Harry woke the next Morning he had two new reasons to thank his Goddess.

The soulscape not only allowed him to sleep soundly,which was far more difficult than usual with Bellatrix squirming around all the time. But he had also gained an hour in which he was completely undisturbed.

Harry had used that hour well and tried to anticipate problems that might be coming up in the near future.

The first conclusion he had come to was that after he and Bellatrix had finished her ritual he would go and meet with the Weasleys and Hermione. He really didn't have the time to waste, these first days being crucial so that when shit hit the fan (a Government was never rebuilt without turmoil) he would be ready. The caveat was if he didn't take the time, even when it wasn't convenient, then how could he expect them to do the same for him.

Secondly Harry had a plan for how to deal with Miss Malfoy. He hadn't seen a way for Bellatrix to talk her down from violence if she came to believe the deaths of her husband and son were his fault.

He wished he had sent Bella yesterday but working out his finances has been more time critical, the murky period between regimes would make hiding whatever he was doing that much more effective.

Anyway Bellatrix would come to the same conclusion eventually and would then preemptively kill her sister. That was an outcome he would like to avoid if possible as the resulting Mental scarring would do her no favours.

So Harry had shifted gear, if he couldn't stop this from ending in bloodshed then he would simply have to direct it. Bellatrix job was to go to her sister and help her grieve. While she was doing that guiding her hatred towards preselected scapegoats like say... Dolores Umbridge. Her Inquisitorial squad having been the first step on poor Dracipoo's road to death.

This was a complete lie, Harry would have quietly removed Draco for that shit in fourth year anyway. A far less petty decision than it seemed, Draco had proven to be remarkably tenacious, a quality that coupled with his future wealth would have made him a dangerous and guaranteed enemy. His hope was that grief would cloud Narcissa's judgement as it was wont to do.

Thirdly Harry urgently needed a support staff. Lawyers to go through contracts, and protect him from litigation. PR people to deal with the public as well as Tutor's, teacher's etc. .

To sum it up Harry needed all the help he could get.

The final Goal for this day would be to write an introductory letter to the Greengrasses, all the while hoping they weren't insulted by his past unintentional snubbing.

Naturally his goals were subject to change, having learned yesterday that when your name was Harry Potter your plan might not survive getting out of Bed in the Morning.

A bit worried about what he might find this Morning he got up. Surprising no one Harry had forgotten something. Namely Bellatrix who was not a morning person. So it was that after much cajoling, grumbling, nudging and nagging Harry finally got up and did his morning routine at 9:30 as opposed to 9:00.

A person more practiced in cunning than Harry might have noticed that Bella hadn't needed sleep the night before and might have come to different conclusions on why she seemed so displeased to be leaving the close confines of the bed. It was also rather suspicious that at the mention of Harry's need to shower her vehement protest quickly became token ones. Not that she relinquished her hold on him though.

10:00 AM Grimmauld Place Harry

After finishing his routine Harry had Bellatrix materialise and they both went to sit in the tapestry room. Harry began what he hoped would be a quick conversation.

"As you might Imagine we both have a lot to do today. If possible I want to have a quick talk like this every day so that we can keep each other up to date. Though life will conspire against us we should be able to have this at least once or twice a week to keep misinformation to a minimum."

He paused for a second, not because he believed she wasn't keeping up but because he was unsure whether she would want to comment now or after he had finished everything. When it didn't seem like she wanted to say anything he continued.

"To give these talks a bit of structure you will start and tell me what you want to do today, what your goals are in general and whether you have knowledge you believe might be pertinent. I would like you to start now."

Here he sent Bella a slight smile to encourage her. His hope was that having her list HER goals would allow him some insight into how her mind functioned. In particular he wondered how her obsession manifested. Harry believed that she might might see him as either a "godlike" existence not in power necessarily but in relation to her. He might completely supersede her own desires, this was naturally exceedingly impractical both for him and for her ability to have a "healthy" life. The other likely option: her obsession was infact a rational decision as in her case without his soul piece filling in the gaps she was literally unable to find lasting happiness. He hoped it was this one as it was a "normal" adaptation to unusual circumstances, much like PTSD in soldiers kept them alive in a warzone but was no longer "healthy" in a perpetualy peaceful environment.

Bellatrix straightened up a bit.

"If I remember correctly we were planning to return me to a body. I would advise we do this at the earliest opportunity so I may help Narcissa as soon as possible. If you still believe I may."

H: "I plan to send you to help Narcissa after you have your Body. We will be doing the ritual after we finish this talk.

You know your sister better than I do, but i think it unlikely that she will let go of her vengeance."

Bellatrix became visibly unhappy. Before he could continue and assuage her fears she broke in with:

"That should not be a problem, well, not an insurmountable one at least. I plan to direct her to a scapegoat. Maybe one of the unspeakables, I could say it was their help that made the mark possible. While she is still behaving irrationally she should take the bait. When she calms down she will likely understand."

Harry assumed the acceptances was a slytherin thing as he couldn't see himself standing for that kind of deception.

"Well, I'm glad you have a plan. Continue on, please."

Bellatrix ruthlessly suppressed the shiver at being asked politely.

"I am unsure how long it will take but when I am finished I plan to return here. Should something come up I will send a patronus."

Harry nodded in approval.

"My main goal is to assist you where I can.

The second is to develop one or more of my interests into a passion. Maybe find a hobby, I have never been able to experience that before."

The fact that Bella seemed to have independent interests relieved him greatly and he would see them flourish.

"I am happy to assist you however you want, I have the money and would gladly use it for you."

Maybe he could get her into painting, Muggle psychologists used that sometimes right?

Her smile in return would go on to motivate him for quite a while.

"Thank you, now to pertinent information. I spent some of last night thinking about what could be useful. You said you gain power from souls, the places with the highest concentration are likely to be the veil of death, though i don't know how we would gain access to it, and dementors in general. If death can tell you or give you a way to kill a dementor this would be our most viable plan to gain a large amount of souls quickly."

Harry blinked in shock.

"That's a really good idea! I'll think about how to contact her so we can talk about this. Hmm..."

Bellatrix knew scheming when she saw it.

"If we are removing Dementors from azkaban the ministry will need to up the Human guards. I don't think they have the manpower to do that and protect the ministry and the citizenry. Maybe if I take over "protecting" Azkaban, as I do have the money to fund a private security force and was planning to make one anyway, this could legitimize it and would help me keep the public and less savvy Ministry workers pacified. Besides Azkaban is a well protected and isolated fortress. Probably one of the most defensible places i could gain access to."

Bella could see this becoming a good plan after they had gone over the details.

"Don't forget that being in charge of the Prison system comes with some hefty political capital. Of course we will need someone to look after it for us while we are doing other things.

I know somewhere you could find that person but it will be... tricky at best."

Harry assumed her pause indicated how unsure she was about this plan.

"I'm not sure how much the public ever learned about our attack on the Bones family. It was less successful than than propaganda made the public believe.

Like with many Pureblood Families, well at least the important ones, our Family names tend to be a reference to our family magics or common aptitudes. Amelia Bones, while a formidable witch and an important enemy as the Head of the MLE, would normally have been assassinated. Poison or similar would have been the approach. The problem came about when... Riddle heard that Susan Bones was a healing prodigy. This in his opinion was a sign she had inherited her familial "talent" for Necromancy. There was no way a he would allow a Necromancer to live unless she was on his side, but Madam Bones was intelligent and so the surest place to kill or capture her, outside of Hogwarts, was at the Ossuary."

She looked to the side to hide her embarrassed flush.

"We had not expected her to be very skilled in her art seeing as she is still quite young. Either she was far more skilled than we imagined or fear

induced accidental magic, because when we had finally killed the 10 manor guards we, by which I mean I, Riddle and Malfoy, felt an unexpected magical buildup. I'm not sure what the others expected but I assumed it was a Delayed ward scheme or some arcane protection ritual activating. The older Manors often have immensely dangerous wards to protect against the more common attacks back when they were built. Of the 50ish people on the property only 3 survived. From what we could tell from the outside, a far more powerful ward scheme having gone up, most every living being either had their life force sucked out or entered something resembling stasis. I believe everyone who is more powerful than miss Bones entered stasis, this is likely to include Madam Bones.

As both Amelia and Susan were unlikely to to free themselves and it taking a large man effort to do it for them. Riddle deemed it wasteful to lose more men attempting to enter the Ossuary until we had researched it thoroughly.

If you were to rescue them you would, at least, gain an honor debt, though a life debts is more likely."

Harry was starting to see where Deaths warning about a Harem was coming from.

"Even if Madam Bones is dead Susan is both Magically and politically powerful and would without a doubt prove useful."

Harry could see Bellatrix was right, besides his saving-people-thing would have made him help anyway.

"Right, save them added to the list. I really don't know how I'm going to do all this stuff."

He said with a sigh, as things were going it would take at least three more days until he had caught up with his responsibilities and could start making plans that affected others instead of having to always react to perceived threats. It didn't seem like things would stop piling up either.  
Harry had the Bridge banish his self pity for the moment, he couldn't afford the delay.

"Anything else?"

"No not at the moment. Take the place from my mind so we can go to my safe house."

Taking a peek at her Mind he found where he would have to apparate to. He made a quick note to always share Fidelius locations mind to mind thus eliminating the middleman.

Outside the front door Bellatrix wrapped herself around Harry's arm because she was unsure how apparition would affect her more diffuse state.

10:30 Safe House

This turned out to be a good decision, her being so compact had counteracted much of the squeezing of apparition.

Taking in his surroundings Harry saw the nondescript shack surrounded by countryside.

He would have to ask Bellatrix if they could stay here until the Goblins had warded wherever he planned to live or Kreacher came back with his report on his properties so he could chose a better protected one than Grimmauld Place. It didn't look very comfortable but the more select Fidelius made up for that

Turning to Bellatrix he asked: "So... what do you need me to do?"

Taking a moment to think she responded: " I don't need you to do anything yet. When I call you in I'll need you to put the ingredients in the cauldron. I set this place up with loads of different stasis charms and I can't have you breaking them by accident."

Harry gave a nod and had bridge set his mind to help cataloging his memories until she called for him. Even a few minutes would be immensely helpful.

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Bellatrix:

Entering her ritual retreat, which looked like some demented potioners dream, shelves filled with ingredients from brains to blood to sunflowers and all under stasis, Bella floated to the back wall. In front of which, inside a rather large ritual circle, sat a cauldron. This cauldron was quite large, then again it had to be as it was filled by a 14 year old human girl. She wasn't doing too well the stasis spell having been cast right as a dagger was plunged into her throat.

It had taken some tricky spellwork to get the timing just right and Bella was rather proud of her accomplishment.

Of course Harry was unlikely to approve so she had him wait outside.

Not wasting any time she possessed the black cat placed outside the circle, her animagus from having given her an affinity towards them.

In control of the cat she swiped her paw through a rune only peripherally connected to the control scheme, thus breaking the stasis.  
Ignoring the final breaths of the dying Muggle as she suffocated on her own blood, thus powering the circle and crumbling to dust. She moved around bringing the necessary ingredients to the Cauldron.

She had of course already prepared ingredients for the ritual but her situation was unique enough that she had decided to use a different one.

Most of last night had been spent customising it to maximise the benefits, the cost would work out in her favor as well as she was living with it anyway.

She left the cat when everything was ready, having snuffed its mind she wasn't particularly worried about it running away. Its breathing would stop in a few minutes though so she called Harry without delay.

He came in a few moments later so she ordered him around until he had dumped the ingredients in. Then she had him squat down and place his hands on specific spots on the ground.

Of course he didn't get the position just right so she lightly scratched him in admonishment.

Her actual goal complete, she had set this place up to function with only herself why he thought she would need him to do anything was beyond her, she leapt on top of a table and into the cauldron. The bits of skin and blood being the last ingredients she needed to complete her customized potion.

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Harry was rather glad he had sorted his Memories while waiting, he had only 2 years left, which meant he remembered a crucial effect of being re-incorporated.

Quickly closing his eyes the potential crisis was averted. After hearing the padding of feet and rustle of clothes Bellatrix spoke.

"You can open your eyes now... and get up to."

Which he did, taking her in he found she looked significantly younger than he had expected.

"Uhm... don't take this the wrong way but.. you look a lot younger. This was expected right?"

"Well yes, when you make yourself a new body there are a number of things you can change. It's not like it will be fundamentally more complex to make the body I had at 22 than the one I died in."

It sounded reasonable in a way only magic really could.

"Wait, but then Voldemort, why did he look so ugly if he could make any body he wanted?"

Bellatrix gave a short laugh.

"Well there were probably a few reasons.

His appearance was rather intimidating and made his heritage as well as his affinity immediately obvious. But it is likely a combination of numerous factors. For one his soul was incredibly mangled, more so than any I have ever heard of. Second he had Nagini as a horcrux, it being a live horcrux likely complicated matters further. Finally his choices when it came to rituals was rather limited by his desire to imbibe your protection, truthfully the fact that your blood did not simply burn him from within is astounding in and of itself. Though giving you another one off protection from death seems to have been the correct choice. Anyway, back to the point. Since his ritual did not involve even a single living sacrifice the amount of power he had to work with was rather limited, especially because his body was made not to age. In return he had to give up some rather... essential equipment."

Harry was not happy he had seen the lack in person. Hoping to divert his thoughts he moved on.

"Right... so do you have everything you need?"

Bellatrix took a quick look around, she had her robe, it was a bit low quality but she could restock at Malfoy Manor and the Lestrange home would keep till Harry officially became head of house.

"No, I have everything I need for now."

She held her hand palm up and focused.

An instant later she felt the reassuring weight of her wand in her hand. The rush of warmth reassured her, though not as powerful as normal that was to be expected. Going to a wand maker should help solve that. She wouldn't be all that surprised if it started straightening out a bit on its own though, wands tended to reflect their owners in interesting ways.

Making her way out, Harry following behind, she asked:  
"So I am to go to my sister and when finished return to Grimmauld Place?"

"Yes, but I am leaving the particulars to your discretion. If you wish to stay send me an owl, send a patronus only in an emergency."

She turned and gave him a bow.  
"Your will be done."

Not straightening or making eye contact Bellatrix apparated away.

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Harry made a note to ask Bella how the death eaters did that smoky thing. Combined with apparition it looked like you were being swallowed up by the shadows. Epic enough to be added to his repertoire.

With a twist he too apparated away.

11:30 The Burrow Harry:

When Harry arrived at the Burrow he was saddened to see that the Building hadn't weathered the "War" as well as could be hoped. It was still standing but where before the building had only been standing because of Magic now it looked like even that was being taxed to its limits. He was not sure whether the new scuff and burn marks were made after the wedding or if they had resulted from Voldemort's attempt to capture him.

Harry was very thankful the Weasley's were naturally boisterous, their cajoling lifting the lethargy that had crept into him at the sight.

After he knocked on the door the noise ceased.

"Who are and why are you here?"

Mister Weasley shouted.

Harry was quite proud they were still being carefull, they must have remembered the end of the First war.

"I am Harry James Potter, here to visit the Weasley family. How did I find out Sirius Black was attempting to kill me in my third year?"

There was a moment of silence, Harry assumed he was thinking, Which was entirely appropriate it actually being a rather sneaky question.

"When I told you at the train station."

Harry was a little conflicted because the answer was infact wrong, he wasn't sure if that was because the question was to hard or if the Weasleys had been compromised. He pre-emptively willed the elder wand into his hand. Thankfully Ginny stepped in before anything could happen.

Accompanied by what was surely an eyeroll, Ginny said: " No Daddy he overheard you talking to mother in the Leaky Cauldron remember."

Now Harry was shocked by Ginny's Memory. He had in fact told her when he had been bringing her up to speed on his "Adventures" ( read near death experiences) but it had been as an aside to lighten the mood by telling of mister Weasley looking flummoxed to find out Harry already knew.

She continued " I think I'll ask the question before you ask him about the function of a hoover."

The embarrassed cough he heard in response did not fill him with confidence in the man's sanity. Then again if Hermione was there the question probably would have caught out any death eaters.

"When did you inform me our relationship was cancelled?" Ginny questioned rather waspishly.

'So she is rather angry with me,well... nothing for it.'

"On the day of Bill and Fleur's wedding."

The sharp intake of breath told Harry Hermione was there as well.

Ginny's rather smug: "That's right, I'm sure it's Harry let him in." did nothing to decrease the sudden sense of foreboding.

With some quick thinking Harry conjured white tulips, he fervently hoped he hadn't mixed up their meaning and that they meant he was asking for forgiveness not the other way around.

Just to make sure everything was set he had Bridge drag up every happy and loving memory it could. He added just a dash of Melancholy and Sadness to give it that extra umph.

When the door opened he did the quickest combat assessment he could, though he tried to make it look like he was searching for Ginny.

Upon finishing he looked her right in the eyes.

Putting every bit of that stored emotion into both his body language, words and eyes he sent her one of his lopsided smiles and said: "Hi Ginny, I am immeasurably glad you're alive."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** **All publicly recognizable characters, setting, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. All other concepts and ideas from other books or stories belong to their respective authors. No copyright infringement is intended.**

The Burrow Ginny Weasley 11:30 AM

Ginny had always been different.

Not in the small ways most people expressed their individuality but also not in the big ways that would get you carted off to the long term care wards in Saint Mungo's.

Her difference was both subtle and all encompassing. She was driven to accomplish certain things.

It was not always clear when her mind would designate something as a goal because it was only over time that it became obvious to her that the fervor she was exhibiting was abnormal.

Her first … obsession, maybe unsurprisingly, was Harry Potter. It had taken till the age of 9 to realize that having memorized every single one of his twenty two adventure books word for word was not at all normal.

She had simply assumed her father had stopped reading them to her so she would be motivated to learn to read on her own.

Something she did with single minded determination in every moment of free time she had till she could read her books once again.

When she became aware that her parents had purposely sold her books because they had hoped removing them would curb her now clearly unhealthy habit ( a futile gesture as she had them all memorized) Ginny decided she would have to keep her special interests private in the future.

Easily seen when two years later, after having secrecy become her go to answer to most anything interesting, she would come across a peculiar Diary.

Of course her skills served her well in her second year when she had to "curtail" the rumours surrounding the Chamber of Secrets and her involvement.

Harry though her longest and most involved obsession was far from the only one. Stealing a particular cookie, killing a garden gnome to find out what its brain looked like and many other more and less challenging or long running goals had come about. One of her main goals at the moment was to prove to her family that she could fly a broom just as good as any of them.

She planned to do this by becoming a main player for the Holyhead Harpies. To achieve this she had spent many hours practicing her flying at night since she had to "borrow" brooms.

When Harry had answered her "Security" question so quickly it had annoyed her a bit. Had he stalled it would have insulted her family more and they (notably including Hermione) would have chewed him out thereby giving Ginny more time to compose herself.

That was not to be though and so when she saw him open the door she could only hope to conceal just how hungrily she drank in his presence. To caught up in her moment to bother listening to what he had to say Ginny slapped the flowers aside (why did he have flowers anyway? ) and hugged him as close as she could. After luxuriating for a minute she turned back into the rest of the world. Hermione had obviously been doing her level best to reduce Harry to a blubbering puddle of guilt, his low self esteem making this both easy and cruel, which she partly approved of. His steady heartbeat attested to how oddly ineffective this seemed to be now.

Seeing an opportunity Ginny made her move. "Shut up Hermione, can't you see we're busy!"

Using the resulting pause she grabbed Harry's hand and raced to her room. Once inside she threw an array of locking and silencing charms at the door, windows and walls.

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Harry was hoping the locking charms were to keep others out and not him in as Ginny could be just a tad violent.

He was beyond thankful he still had the death-stick in hand because mere moments after she finished Ginny whirled around and started on a barrage of stinging hexes.

Her skill at combat only becoming more pronounced as she started hurling her own insult into the mix.

" You'll be safe at Hogwarts Ginny! It's too dangerous to come with me Ginny! You idiot! Do you know how many people I had to confound (read: Imperious, but Harry didn't need to know that) just to make it to class unmolested! I`m bloody surprised half the school can still do basic maths!"

Wincing earned Harry a painful reminder to practice shielding. Thankfully Bridge was already analyzing everything so slowly but surely wasted movements were disappearing, reflexes were being tweaked and his general effectiveness was going up.

Naturally Ginny noticed and increased her fervor as well as her spell range. Where before stinging hexes flew now banishers, reductos and concussing hexes put the fear of redhead's in Harry.

"I'm fairly sure my obliviate is up there with Gilderoy Lockheart now you twit! " Ginny`s rant was only occasionally interrupted by Harry's " I love you sweethearts", " I`m sorry" and the occasional yelps of pain.

Thankfully after a few long minutes Ginny`s anger ran its course.

Huffing and puffing Ginny collapsed on her, miraculously still standing bed. Slowly inching his hand closer Harry tried to pat her head. Slapping his hand away she snapped " I'm not an animal, Harry !" The move reminded him so much of when he used to annoy Mrs Figg's`cats by poking them in the stomach while they tried to doze in the sun that he burst out laughing. Ignoring the confused but baleful glare he got in response he glomped her and persistently cuddled until she finally gave up with an affronted huff. Yes, all that affronted pride and dignity. Definitely a cat, a lioness if her combat ability and house were anything to go by.

Of course Harry couldn't tell what her reaction to his teasing was. So he waited in contented silence until she calmed down and started to return his snuggling.

" I love you Ginny. No matter what you had to do to stay safe, you are still the fiery, strong and beautiful woman I love." A less controlled man could potentially have called Ginny`s happy humming a purr.

Of course Harry would never do such a thing and only spent the next few minutes soaking in the calm.

Sadly Harry was laboring on a very tight schedule. So he steeled himself and moved on.

" We are going to have to deal with a lot of problems now that Voldemort is defeated.

Magical law has come into effect and I have become a very important person with far more responsibilities than I have time for.

To be blunt I've had to nullify a large number of marriage contracts already. There is one with the Greengrass family that seems ironclad."

"That bitch!" Ginny hissed clearly incensed. "That explains why she was always so condescending at the meetings !"

"Wait, what meetings ? Ginny what do meetings have to do with me!?" Harry questioned, instantly suspicious.

"Ugh...you know study groups and stuff." Ginny replied a bit shiftily."Anyway! I'll ask Percy for a good lawyer to make sure.

This isn't totally unexpected though. Well Daphne being you've betrothed yes, but polygamy or at least polyamory is not all that uncommon. In the wizarding world the gender ratio is a bit more skewed with 60% F/M ratio."

"Wait why`s that ?"

"Well there is a few reasons. Besides it being a general quirk of magic, after a family has had a male heir, and sometimes a spare, there is quite honestly no real need for a child to be of either gender. As equality outside the occasional head of house is more or less absolute. So in the families where headship is gender locked, the Blacks for example, family magic will seek to keep succession as simple as possible. So yeah, with you being famous the moment you left Hogwarts you would be inundated with proposals and business deals all set to have daughters marry into your house." She shrugged. " We will work something out should our relationship go that far."

"Good, that's a load of my mind and if you can find a good lawyer or two ...maybe 20 if I'm honest. You`ll have removed one of the biggest problems."

'I'll have to get her a nice present if she manages that.' Harry mussed " Is there anything I can help you with?"

Inwardly Harry cringed just thinking about adding anything to the already overlong list of tasks.

"Right now, no. But Mum wants to start rebuilding mid next week at the latest. She's hoping most of the turmoil will have calmed down by then. Hermione already started planning revision meetings for us since we'll all be in the same year. That's about it, I think."

"I need to speak to Hermione about that. I'll be helping with the building." He gave Ginny a kiss and a cuddle.

Then he got up, straightened his clothes and got ready to leave. Another elder wand powered reparo fixing up the room.

" I'm leaving in about ten minutes at the latest. Let`s go say hi to your family."

About a minute later they both walked into the kitchen.

Being a gentleman Harry naturally let her go first.

Before they entered he affected a limp and cradled his left shoulder.

Entering the room Ginny spoke: " Hey guys. Harry`s here."

"Hey guys. Made it in one piece, too. Ginny`s got a vicious right hook."

"My word! Ginny I taught you better than that!"

Harry answered the vicious glare Ginny sent his way, as Mrs Weasley dragged her away to berate her, with a perfectly executed Dumbledorian eye twinkle. Happy that he had both waylaid Molly and preoccupied everyone in the hopes they would all forget he had dumped Ginny at a wedding. Harry joined in the conversation. "Sooo, …..Fred, George, Mr. Weasley, Hermione, Ron…. How's it hanging?"

"Harry! Language!" Hermione's outrage was tempered by the chuckling of everyone else.

"It's mostly alright, Harry. Once the more volatile time is up, probably in a day or two, there'll be an order meeting. During which we will for the most part decide the direction in which we want to push.

Last time Dumbledore pushed for rehabilitation. We feared Innocents would get caught in sham trials as hatred was running at an all time high. By the time we noticed actual Death Eaters were getting away and we flipped it around most of the top levels were already free. Of course the flip caught us as well when Sirius ended up with his sham of a trial." In response to Mr. Wesley 's rather heavy statement Harry spoke:

" Well at least this time the majority of us younger ones have enthusiasm. With your experience from last time our chances are already better."

Mr. Weasley sent him a thankful grin and he noticed a bit of weight seemed to have disappeared from his shoulders.

"Yeah Dad, with Harry as our Glorious leader...

...There's no way something could go wrong!" the twins chimed in mischievously.

"Fred, George, everything still hole with you two ?"

" Indubitably Harry ….

….No matter how hard our enemy's tried…

...we valiant fought through curses….

….hexes….

...a rather lethal collapsing wall….

...not that our rather serendipitous shield hats….

….Weasley TM...

...weren't up to the task...

...and any number of other dangers...

...we pulled through and triumphed in the end!"

Failing to suppress a snort at the twins cavalier manner Harry went on "Glad to hear it. So Ron, Mione?"

"Fucking great to be home mate. Mum's cooking's divine after that camping trip." The annoyed look Hermione was giving him likely indicated she did not appreciate being made to wait.

"Harry I can tell when you're nervous. What`s wrong?"

Maybe it was a bit suspicious but Hermione had an uncanny knack when it came to sniffing out secrets and while he had been willing to inform Bellatrix about the Master of Death business (mainly because of her hopefully fanatical loyalty. As well as her skill at occlumency) He didn't really want to tell anyone without a very good reason. The best kept secrets were the one nobody knows about after all.

So Harry twisted the truth a little. "I´m just a little worried you'll get overzealous as I`ll need you to help pick out books, teachers and tutors so we can catch up on what we missed this year. If you're able you can send me a list with every book, teacher etc. you can find. You're all invited to join but I´ll need to schedule that when I know more." The almost maniacal glint that entered her eyes told him she was thoroughly diverted.

"There`s a lot going on at the moment so I have to get going. Send me an owl if you need my help with anything."

"Sure thing, Harry." "Talk to you later, mate." and so on followed him out of the room. A quick hug for Mrs Weasley and kiss for Ginny were all it took to see him gone.

It was probably rather rude of him to show up unannounced and then leave so quickly, especially since his main reason for leaving was so that he could go to Grimmauld and do an extended search through the library. But with his mind fully cataloged as of five minutes ago and the abysmal showing during his mock duel with Ginny it was abundantly clear to him that while he was capable of learning, improvising and then improving at inhuman speeds he simply did not know enough to use his ability to its full potential. A letter to the Goblins about books and the Bones would also be useful. Harry was glad he had removed his self pity for the moment or he would have whined about how he also needed muggle books, to meet the Ministry, hold a public speech, get his legal team set up and so much more ! But he had and so he apparated away and got to work with no delay.

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A/N: there's a Time skip after this chapter that should see us in alagaesia halfway through the next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Harry had found what he considered the most useful book in all of existence. It was titled "The Wizarding Unspeakables uplifting Primer".

Its preface read thusly:

After you have placed a drop of your blood somewhere on this pocket book, your clearance will be referenced and depending on it material will be made available.

Perhaps not surprisingly, his impulsivity took over and the instructions were carried out. In reaction new words scrawled across the pages. The purpose of this book is to function as a reference, guide and journal for all Unspeakables. As an Unspeakable you will come across and have to deal with any number of circumstances that might range from the ordinary to the sanity shattering.

We will start with S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure) how to deal with memory charms and then to ever more unlikely scenarios or situations: If you open the book, a third of the way in you reach the reference section. Two thirds of the way in is the Journal. The page after this one contains the index. Tapping a heading will change the first third to that topic. For more indepth information go to: settings and options.

Having literally stumbled over the book when he entered the Black family library Harry had spent a little time checking the book for curses and jinxes. After that he took the time to read through the SOP section completely. It had given him all the information he needed to create the necessary equipment and gain the skills it had deemed needed for an Unspeakable field agent.

They seemed like good basic precautions so he called for an elf who had the time and sent him to gather the necessary materials. This would take most of the day so in the meantime he went to the basement.

It was fairly cluttered but a bit of levitating cleared him a section at the stone wall. An hour or two of practice and he had gone through most of the spells Hermione had researched for their Horcrux hunt.

Bridge had stayed in combat mode after his "battle" with Ginny so he had only needed to cast each spell 6 times. Twice out loud, twice wordless, twice with intentional variations in wand movement. The reasoning behind the rather simple and very boring exercise came back to the original purpose of wands.

Its two primary purposes were standardisation and consistency. All disciplines of magic were highly complex, often relied on obscure symbolism, and were fiendishly sensitive. Blood magic was a perfect example. Every being's blood was different, this being rather obvious, but it also differed within an organism constantly. From water content to oxygen levels and the magical charge it carried, all these things could, would and did influence every other component in the magic. This meant everything was fiendishly complex and monstrously difficult to teach.

Wands on the other hand (in large part thanks to a wandcrafters skill) were fairly consistent. Well treated wood would change little over time and the core would stay the same.

The length of the wood set limits on how much power was drawn from the wizard's magical core autonomously. A more flexible wand was more tolerant where a more rigid wand treated each changed wand movement as intentional.

The core often 'flavored' the magic that passed through it and so unicorn hair worked well for healing but casting the viler kinds of necromancy would require consciously changing the magic sent through the wand ( and leaking a little of that flavor into one's own core) so as to 'neutralize' the wands bias.

The 'flavor' required to cast the vilest necromancy spells would likely rot the hair in a unicorn hair wand, changing it permanently (likely breaking it completely).

The overall consistency brought about by widespread wand use made it viable to teach whole classes of students, where they could use reaction tables (12' oak, Dragon heartstring would need movements to be shorter to account for the power of the core and length of the wand, spells names would be said quicker to be in sync with the movements and so on.) and the guidance of a teacher to learn.

Since Harry was now using the elder wand and he had a fair bit of time on his hands, now was a good time to see how it affected his casting.

The first two spells allowed him to adjust what needed adjusting. Pair two removed the guidance of the words so each movement had to be even more precise and the final two let him know how changing the normal routine tended to affect the spell.

Two hours of this left him feeling distinctly wrung out.

After a modest lunch he went back to the library. He would have liked to keep reading the Uplifting primer. But there were a few things in the SOP section he would prefer to do first.

Much of the skills and abilities the book had alluded to were not combative in nature. Not a major loss all things considered with transfiguration, three unforgivables, some minor creativity and basic charms already at his disposal.

What it featured heavily was the science of magic and myriad ways to quantify anything and everything that he might come across.

To make the most efficient use of his soulscape Harry started with himself, his monitor would finally have enough data and context to actually be of use.

Choosing the library for what ended up being six to seven hours of mostly fruitless wand waving mainly had to do with being around the necessary reference books.

His quest for success proved massively frustrating. Thankfully after two hours of spirit crushing failure Bridge had crunched through enough data to get him within the elder wand's tolerance levels on a consistent basis, which sped up the process quite a bit.

He didn't have to cast silently or getting this far with new spells might have taken a few days.

The readouts he had gotten from the combination of basic medical, potions and arithmancy spells gave the health monitor some data to start with. He would either have to look into setting up some personal wards so the monitor would remain up to date or some form of wandless magic.

The best part (in Harry's humble opinion) was that he now had all the data he needed to cast a spell he had always wanted to try.

The Fidelius, which according to the book was the main reason the statute of secrecy was viable, the most important project the department of mysteries oversaw and the reason its employees were called 'Unspeakables'.

The spell had been created for the sole purpose of hiding magic from the muggles.

A truly complex bit of magic that when used for its original purpose had required 200 witches and wizards from 15 different countries, with 4150 wand movements to define its specific remit.

After it was cast every non-magical would not be able to grasp that magic was real. The scope of the spell was so power intensive that blatant magic often causes it to fail on a case by case basis.

Even after managing to cast the spell there was still the problem of the secret keeper. No single soul was deemed capable of keeping the secret. Instead the 200 participants were given parts to protect.

To serve as another layer of security the participants had their identity placed under another Fidelius.

Becoming Unspeakables in truth. Now a day high level operatives are made secret keepers to maintain the needed number of slivers, with a rise in people to counteract the ever rising global muggle population.

In Harry's case casting the default spell was easier since bridge calculated faster than any normal human could, making a lot of the preparation moot. A few test runs where he didn't call upon his magic made sure he was ready.

The secret Harry chose to hide was the standard test, the primary caster could not also be secret keeper. Thus attempting to hide the nonexistent fact would allow the spell to run its course without risking anything in case of failure.

Ending on an upward flick a golden orb formed before him, nearly blinding. Harry needed to focus hard on his chosen secret to avoid distraction.

Slowly Harry placed the orb to his forehead, where it sunk in not unlike a memory strand.

Tears formed in his eyes as pain blossomed in his mind. Crumpling to the floor he only managed a wheeze when he tried calling for help. Harrys vision failed and nausea made itself known as the pain encompassed him. In the moments before it overpowered him completely he heard a loud shriek.

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Her mortal had managed to draw attention from the other gods. Meddling with time was an annoyance for most Gods and so it was always watched carefully.

This attention was not in their best interest and so, using some of her stockpiled energy, Death sent Harry Potter on to his first work trip a little early.

The hangers on that trailed after her priest should keep him safe enough, for now.

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Harry found himself within a body. It was not his and he controlled none of it himself.

There was no time here, nor could he think. Without a physical brain of his own bridge was the only part of his soul that could think. Bridge was naturally much slower than a normal brain so only the most basic of thoughts could be had.

To further the most basic tenets of life, survival, he extended tendrils of his being.. Where he found this body's natural ones he took their place, subsuming their function and increasing the resources available to him. After subsuming the extremities of this body more complex thought patterns became possible. First curiosity caused him to expand with more purpose. Then when the body required more things of the nerves and neurons under his control fear and caution made him comply to the body's demands even though they lowered his expansion rate.

When he reached the brain, having subsumed the rest of the body in totality expansion progressed much more rapidly.

Processes that were done with bridge could be offloaded onto the brain. From there thoughts made themselves known. A sense of self, then the senses, sight, sound , taste, vision proprioception and the rest filled in the blank world Harry had inhabited for the last while.

When the riot of sensations was connected Harry's takeover was complete, having disconnected the last strand of the original owner.

He began exercising control of his new body by violently evacuating the contents of his stomach.

He collapsed and cried on the forest floor. Face scrunched in sorrow while great racking sobs shook his frame.

Because even though he hadn't known while it happened, first unable to think and then distracted by the returning sensations, he had killed the original owner of this body. Disconnecting his soul strand by strand and he knew without the shadow of doubt, now in possession of his memories (unsorted though they were) that Eragon had been an innocent.

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With self pity turned off Harry's thoughts could not enter the thought patterns of self recrimination and wallowing that might have extended his despair, so after a few minutes of slowly lessening sadness he was calmed enough to ponder his situation.

A mental command had Bridge start organising the pilfered memories found in the boy's physical brain. As it wasn't taken from his soul but from the neural networks formed in the physical body the memories were spotty, incomplete and often vague.

In its own way this was an advantage though, with much less data to work through Bridge was unlikely to need more than a few hours to sort through the haul. Prioritizing languages and communication wherever possible of course.

While bridge did its thing Harry took stock of more physical things.

Thankfully he hadn't fallen into his regurgitant and so was still mostly clean. Standing up and looking around the mountains on the horizon immediately told him he was a fair bit from home. Surrounding him was a deep forest and since his crying had quieted the animal sounds were beginning to return.

Wandering around without knowing what was going on would be foolish so instead he found a tree removed from his puke, placed his back to it, crouched down and began to think.

'The last thing I remember is something going wrong with the Fidelius, then I took over this boys body.

For the moment assuming that I messed the Fidelius up and ended up where ever here is seems reasonable.

What do I have on me? Some clothes. A sack of... food, a quiver, some arrows and a bow lying back over where I just was.

Anything else? Yes, I can feel a connection to the Hallow's, like three strings leading into nowhere.'

Taking a moment he mentally tugged on the one that felt like the Elder wand, which dropped into the waiting palm of his right hand.

A flick and he had wordlessly vanished his vomit, finally solving that problem.

Now with a wand in his possession Harry felt much safer, there weren't many things that could trouble a careful wizard, after all.

Next he decided to place a Notice-me-not. But when he spoke the incantation the magic he had been shaping started twisting in ways it shouldn't.

Breaking off the attempt before he messed something else up Harry was stumped. Deciding to try a different spell, just incase he spoke.

"Expe..." again the magic twisting.

Worried now Harry snapped out a silent banishing charm on some rocks.

It worked fine and the rocks slammed into a great tree with a crack.

'So it seems words are messing with my spells?' Harry asked himself.

Testing his theory Harry began to babble. "And the apple fell from the tree and cows rose in revolt..."

'No just speech doesn't seem to cause anything.' Harry decided.

'Then perhaps when in conjunction with magic?'

Another try, this time pulling up some magic and placing it into his voice.

" Fl..." 'Yes! The moment I tried to say Fly and magic was in my voice it shaped itself into something.

After taking a moment to wrestle his impulsive desire to test what this new shape might be down, he resolved to silent cast for the moment. Maybe when Bridge had finished its cataloging or he was in a safer place he could satisfy his curiosity.

Checking Bridge showed it was one percent into its job, quite fast seeing as barely a few minutes could have passed. Now what should he do in the meantime? Perhaps testing the Tempus spell to see when he...

His train of thought was derailed when a bit further up the mountain a large explosion broke the forests calm. Less than a second later a feminine shriek tore through the air, followed by a thump. Obviously having hit something.

Resolved to check on this new development Harry crouched and, wand in hand, crept towards the sound.

Reaching a small clearing with ground marked from the explosion he took stock of the situation. Rising from a crumpled heap on the ground a woman, dressed in high quality witches robes, cradled a broken left arm.

Bellatrix had for reasons beyond him followed Harry to where ever they were. Then slammed into a tree and gotten tangled with a large sapphire rock.

She was the picture of affronted dignity. Combined with her ruffled appearance, the surprised shriek and the receding adrenaline Harry couldn't help but chuckle.

Not a complete asshole he made to help her up. The haughty sniff she made in response only furthered his mirth.

After a few moments to calm down, giving Bella sometime to get herself in order, as well as she could with a broken arm, he was ready to deal with the new change in situation.

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A/N: So... new chapter. Yay! Mixing the vague HP magic with the contradictory Inheritance magic is difficult. I'll have to see how that goes. I plan to do a revision on the earlier chapters so it'll be interesting to see if much changes.


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